NHL farm system rankings: Best, worst

[Thorner]

20 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

Reinhart isn't, like, a plodder, but I would not be using synonyms of "fast" to describe him relative to his peers - the synonyms would be those of "slow" when you boil down to it. 

And Leon is greatly helped with McDavid but is still a better player than Sam when not with McDavid. Not by a huge amount, but the guy is a stud in his own right.

I still feel the synonyms would be those of "average", when comparing Sam's skating, rather than "slow".

[Weave]

55 minutes ago, Thorny said:

I still feel the synonyms would be those of "average", when comparing Sam's skating, rather than "slow".

I think much closer to average than slow is right.  He doesn't strike me as someone who can't keep up with plays.  However, as the kids that are drafted and stay in the league are better and better skaters, he'll slide off average.

I do think Sam's skating is going to mean he is one of those players whose performance drops like a rock at some point around 30.  Hopefully he's capable of adapting his game when that happens.

[Randall Flagg]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

I still feel the synonyms would be those of "average", when comparing Sam's skating, rather than "slow".

Nah, mine are on the slow side of average. The average NHL skater would be Sam's speed if bottom sixes were mostly composed of cement-legged guys like 20 years ago balancing out the speedsters. Now, everyone is varying degrees of fast, except for the guys who aren't fast, and Sam isn't fast

 

2 minutes ago, Weave said:

I think much closer to average than slow is right.  He doesn't strike me as someone who can't keep up with plays.  However, as the kids that are drafted and stay in the league are better and better skaters, he'll slide off average.

I do think Sam's skating is going to mean he is one of those players whose performance drops like a rock at some point around 30.  Hopefully he's capable of adapting his game when that happens.

I still can't figure out if slower-but-high-IQ players are supposed to hit a wall when they hit 30 because of the skating weakness or if they can play longer because they never needed their speed anyway. 

It often gets said that a guy who skates well can play into his thirties - but I disagree, because as soon as he slows down he loses the key element to his game, whereas a slow guy getting slightly slower just makes slightly worse something that didn't matter in the first place towards making him good.

[Weave]

5 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Nah, mine are on the slow side of average. The average NHL skater would be Sam's speed if bottom sixes were mostly composed of cement-legged guys like 20 years ago balancing out the speedsters. Now, everyone is varying degrees of fast, except for the guys who aren't fast, and Sam isn't fast

 

I still can't figure out if slower-but-high-IQ players are supposed to hit a wall when they hit 30 because of the skating weakness or if they can play longer because they never needed their speed anyway. 

It often gets said that a guy who skates well can play into his thirties - but I disagree, because as soon as he slows down he loses the key element to his game, whereas a slow guy getting slightly slower just makes slightly worse something that didn't matter in the first place towards making him good.

IMO the guys that play well into their 30's are the exceptional skaters, not the very good ones.  When they slow, they are still above average.  Think Teppo, Patrick, Recchi, Chelios, Jagr, etc.  Of course, those were also the very heady, intelligent players too, so maybe it requires both.....

Edited September 5, 2018 by Weave

[Randall Flagg]

1 minute ago, Weave said:

IMO the guys that play well into their 30's are the exceptional skaters, not the very good ones.  When they slow, they are still above average.  Think Teppo, Patrick, Recchi, Chelios, Jagr, etc.  Of course, those were also the very heady, intelligent players too, so maybe it requires both.....

Makes sense, it seems like you can walk yourself into contradictions if you only focus on one thing. 

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But yeah, it's impossible to quantify, but if there was a bell curve of NHL skaters, Sam being at the center/average would roughly mean that as many NHL regulars are slower than him as are faster. I think it's a safe assumption that NHL skating-ability/speed distributions behave as a bell curve. All I have are my own eyes, but when I watch other teams and try to think about this as objectively as possible, quite frankly the only way I could come close to being convinced that this was true for Sam is if somebody actually produced the data for every NHL player somehow. 

[dudacek]

27 minutes ago, Weave said:

I think much closer to average than slow is right.  He doesn't strike me as someone who can't keep up with plays.  However, as the kids that are drafted and stay in the league are better and better skaters, he'll slide off average.

I do think Sam's skating is going to mean he is one of those players whose performance drops like a rock at some point around 30.  Hopefully he's capable of adapting his game when that happens.

I think if he stays fit and healthy, he plays until his late 30s because he doesn’t depend on strength or speed to excel.

Gretzky, Andreychuk, Ron Francis Larry Murphy, Thornton, Delvechio, Gilmour - those guys are top 25 all-time in games played. Three were Sam speed, the other four considerably slower.

I’m still sticking with Henrik Sedin comparison. Hope he can hit the same heights.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=34007

[Thorner]

43 minutes ago, Weave said:

I think much closer to average than slow is right.  He doesn't strike me as someone who can't keep up with plays.  However, as the kids that are drafted and stay in the league are better and better skaters, he'll slide off average.

I do think Sam's skating is going to mean he is one of those players whose performance drops like a rock at some point around 30.  Hopefully he's capable of adapting his game when that happens.

 

8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think if he stays fit and healthy, he plays until his late 30s because he doesn’t depend on strength or speed to excel.

Gretzky, Andreychuk, Ron Francis Larry Murphy, Thornton, Delvechio, Gilmour - those guys are top 25 all-time in games played. Three were Sam speed, the other four considerably slower.

I’m still sticking with Henrik Sedin comparison. Hope he can hit the same heights.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=34007

Right, I think it's the players who depend on their speed to such a large proportionate degree that are more subject to that drop-off, as they lose what makes them special when that time comes - when father time starts taking away their legs. Maybe a Dylan Larkin, who knows.

A guy like Sam will, to your point, Weave, find himself increasingly in a league where he's among the slower players, and is already only average now, as is already accustomed (and has shown the aptitude) to finding success in spite of, and not because of, his skating ability. 

You do get cases like Moulson where an already slow player completely drops off, so it's possible with Sam, but Sam anticipates the play in such a way, has the hockey mind to hopefully tailor his skills to succeed regardless.

[nfreeman]

If the bell curve is limited to top-6 forwards and top-4 defensemen, Reino is well into the slow end of the curve.  

That’s why JBott only wants to give him the league minimum.  

[Weave]

35 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I think if he stays fit and healthy, he plays until his late 30s because he doesn’t depend on strength or speed to excel.

Gretzky, Andreychuk, Ron Francis Larry Murphy, Thornton, Delvechio, Gilmour - those guys are top 25 all-time in games played. Three were Sam speed, the other four considerably slower.

I’m still sticking with Henrik Sedin comparison. Hope he can hit the same heights.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=34007

If you look the list of oldest NHL players you'll find it dominated by guys who were way better skaters than their peers.  The Andrechuck's and Claude Lemieux's are not in large numbers.  And that list includes the dead puck, clutch and grab era.

Again, I'm not referring to raw speed.  Grtetzky was never among the league's fastest players, but his skating was sublime.  He drifted off to above average as his career wound down.

Longevity needs legs.  Especially today.

I'm just not sure that Sam has the kind of skating that carries him into his mid 30's.

 

[Weave]

On the other hand, if Sam is a key figure on a great Sabres team that makes our hearts flutter and our emotions run wild, I won't begrudge the team for offering him a contract at 28 that makes him overpaid at 35 to keep that run alive.

[Thorner]

54 minutes ago, Weave said:

On the other hand, if Sam is a key figure on a great Sabres team that makes our hearts flutter and our emotions run wild, I won't begrudge the team for offering him a contract at 28 that makes him overpaid at 35 to keep that run alive.

Same. At least some of those years (late 20s, early 30s) we might be getting prime or close to prime Sam. 

[LGR4GM]

https://theathletic.com/528780/2018/09/18/pronman-ranking-nhl-teams-by-their-u23-core/

This is pronman's article on the best u23 cores in the NHL. Buffalo is not 1st but we did good. I like our core better than the 1st teams core minus 1 player.